This is turning into the Summer of the Inconvenient Breakup on reality TV. First it was the broken engagement of Hugh Hefner and his girlfriend/nursemaid Crystal Harris, which forced Lifetime to turn its planned “Hef Getting Married” special into a post mortem on the relationship.

The victims now are tattoo artist/LA Ink star Kat Von D and tattooed person/motorcycle mogul Jesse James, who was already no stranger to high-profile breakups. Their march to the altar has been chronicled by gossip columns for months – and really, who didn’t find them a perfect match? – but news of their uncoupling broke Monday night, courtesy of Kat’s Twitter feed. “I am no longer w Jesse and out of respect for him, his family, and myself, that’s all the info I’d like to share,” she tweeted (it’s always amusing when people who put their personal lives on television then come out and ask for privacy). The major issue in the split was apparently the unwillingness of either to turn their long distance relationship into a same-city marriage, as James and his children live in Austin while Von D, not surprisingly, is Los Angeles-based.

This would be just another Grade C celebrity split were it not for the fact that a new season of LA Ink begins Thursday, and Kat’s famous fiancé and her love for him are big parts of the premiere episode. The impending wedding comes up as a running theme throughout the season, which is exactly what everyone wants from a relationship gone bad – to have memories of it piped into America’s living rooms week after week.

If there’s any positive for Von D, it’s that the embarrassment from having everyone watch her gush over her old boyfriend can’t be any worse than the embarrassment of having been involved with noted philanderer James to begin with.